


Fandomtine Day 3: Soliloquy of the Vampire Cloistered

by Lyrstzha



Series: Fandomtine Project: A Litany in the Time of Plague [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, Lockdown Life, Pandemics, Quarantine, fandomtine project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:08:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29308551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: Poor Spike and his stupid extroverted soul do not take to social distancing well.
Series: Fandomtine Project: A Litany in the Time of Plague [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2152647
Kudos: 6





	Fandomtine Day 3: Soliloquy of the Vampire Cloistered

**Author's Note:**

> This exists in the same universe of my _From the Ashes_ series, but can stand alone fine so long as you know Spike and Illyria went to the hellmouth in Cleveland after surviving the events of the _Angel_ finale. 
> 
> The title is from Robert Browning's "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister." This is my answer to day 3 of the fandomtine meme: 3) How does one of your favorite characters from one of your fandoms deal with lockdown?

Spike is so annoyed. It's not like vampires even get viruses, so why should _his_ life get upended?

But it is. Bars are closed – even demon bars, which theoretically shouldn't need to be, but it would be too visible if they weren't. Who wants angry humans and police turning up? They'd need to be killed, and that would only end up in hunters or slayers turning up to avenge them. Way too much trouble.

Besides bars, theaters and libraries are also out. Spike breaks into both anyway, of course, but he doesn't actually know how to work a modern movie projector very well, so he just ends up ruining a classic print of _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom_. He does get more familiar with the Dewey Decimal System, though, so there's that.

Most retail stores are closed, which he largely doesn't care about except when he emphatically does, such as when he can't find a decent pair of socks anywhere in his laundry. They've all got holes, and his boots rub uncomfortably on his feet through them. He steals a pair out of a dryer in his motel laundry room, though, and that solves that problem.

Liquor stores are open, but like other essential stores that are open, they have shortened hours, which is pretty inconsiderate to the sunlight-averse community, if you ask Spike. He ends up having to pay extra to get booze delivered by a demon delivery service that is really taking advantage of the situation to do some serious price-gouging. He tries asking Illyria to go for him during the day, but she gives him a withering glare and declares that running errands is for minions, not gods.

On the other hand, restaurants will still make him blooming onions or fried cheese or mostly anything else he'd usually want, and they'll deliver for much less than that damn extortionate demon service charges. Once he figures out which ones will also bring him cocktails by delivery, he's considerably less annoyed with life, even though the prices for that are not actually much less than the demons were charging.

But all of that is just day-to-day annoyance; it's not significant, really. What is worse is missing the people – the pulse-pounding crush of them at a club, the smell of their hormones and sweat on a dance floor, the warmth of their skins as they press close past him on the trolley. Illyria doesn't actually seem to give much of a fuck about the lack of human contact, so Spike pretends he doesn't either. But even just dropping in for a casual conversation with Nandi, who runs the magic shop up the street, is something he misses acutely (not that he doesn't fully support Nandi staying home, because she's diabetic and over 60.) For most of his vampiric life, Spike would have sworn that he didn't need people except as food, but it was never actually true, and it has never been less true than it is now, when it's just him and Illyria and his stupid extroverted soul.


End file.
